O.P.M.

[Simon of the Playa]

usually it stands for "other peoples money" but i am refering to a phenomena
i call "other peoples memories"

let me explain, and this is not a snarky joke, or snide rejoinder as usual.


for a long time, i have been collecting other peoples precious memories.

now before you think i'm some kind of psychic ghoul, hear me out.

i am a junk-picker....i hate to think that something, ANYTHING might go to waste, or that if i save an item for long enough, someone will come into my unholy nightmare also known as my workshop and ask for said item, no matter what it is, and i will have it....waiting, just for that person and or purpose, and for that moment all is well in the world as object and person in need of object are united.

point in case, my friend once came in and said "simon, i know this sounds ridiculous, but i need a sample of the scooby do foghorn"

as it turns out, i had it on 78 rpm from an old sound effects album....it was THE scooby foghorn sound, not just close...


he looked at me and said "thats fucked up dude, thank you"

and went on his merry way.

now this leads me to Art and Virginia.

Art and Virginia Posner lived in Rochester, NY, pretty much all of their lives.

they were married in 1939 right before Art left for WWII. they were 21 and 22 respectively.

they had 3 children, 2 boys, and a daughter, who was mentally handicapped named sharon.

Art was an accountant and also a part-time car dealer

Virginia was a Homemaker, and seemingly the center of a large, loving family.

every picture she is in, she glows, she is the epicenter, the focus..


now whether this was Art's doing, as he was an amateur photographer non-pareil, or it was just the being of Virginia that seemed to jump off the page wherever she was, i dont care...I'm in Love with a ghost.


she is radiant, happy, caring, loving....all of this i take away from the vast storehouse of pictures and memoribilia lovingly stored in boxes by her fastidious husband for so many years.

how did i get It?


well, as far as i can surmise, and i have the funeral programs, and dedications, Virginia died after a long bout with cancer, Art died 2 weeks later from a broken heart.

their shit head sons, alan, and jerry (i actually have met jerry, as he is a peer) threw out everything when they sold the house....


wedding pictures, baby pictures, high school and college, EVERYTHING.

Their whole life together, and a sweet, gentle one at that had been tossed out by the side of the road like yesterdays kitty litter.


i couldnt believe it...i saved every box i could carry on my schwin, and went back repeatedly until i had what i thought was all of it.

i then spent months pouring through photographs and precious memories from someone else's life.


but here's the thing.....if you live a long life, with all of it's accoutrements, and then somebody ditches all of your memories, those little pieces of you that you keep in a drawer or closet somewhere to remind you of who you are and where you've been, where you ever there?

what is your life worth? if no-one cares or remembers? especially your children?

as if a tree fell, and then got made into plywood, and never got heard.

i kept thinking, oh my god, this happens ALL THE TIME, and i started collecting other peoples precious memories that i would find, sort of a way to save them, and in return, myself as well.


a long story shortened, i eventually tracked Sharon, the youngest daughter to an institution in NYC, where she lived, and most likely never visited by her two ass-hole brothers who were by all appearances, embarrassed by her existence.

i had an opportunity to go to NYC a few years back, and it struck me....


bring sharon her mom and dad....


The Moment she saw the box, she knew....i dont know how, but she did.

"MOMMA".....

i will never forget it.....she opened the box and just said "momma, poppa" and hugged the photos as if they were people, rocking back and forth and smiling thru the tears.


i broke down, i had to go to the john and wipe my face and blow my nose and put on my man facade of tough guy.

i had finally brought art and virgina posner to the person who needed them most.

my job was done.



so, how does this relate to burning man?


this year, i am bringing my collection of other peoples memories and will set them up in a small display for your perusal....look thru the old photographs, make up your own story based on what you see as to who these people were and what were their lives like.

were they middle-class? working class? religious? who were they?

read their poems, letters, invitations and the like, and ask yourself, what is YOUR life worth?

go check your junk drawer, it may be filled with clues to your own existence you had forgotten about.

and at the end, on sunday, i'll burn them, the ghosts of others pasts, and set them free, so they can finally stop haunting me, and make their way to their proper junk drawers in heaven, or whatever may be next.


feel free to add to the collection, it must be someone you dont know, or you dont THINK you know, but that is a metaphysical question that i wont get into right now.


the booth of other peoples precious memories will be located in or around the root society, 10 and splade.



stop over and say hello, and goodbye to these people.

[**burn**]

Beautiful.
You surprise me.

[Simon of the Playa]

thank you.

i surprise myself sometimes as i am in the long process of earning back karma points for previous mistakes and mis-deeds.

i only hope i can balance the scales before i go.


sharon was one person i helped, who never expected it, never really knew from whence it came, and without expectation of payment or reward.

a good deed.

it feels good to do good.....even when it makes me cry.






i wish i had learned this sooner.

[CapSmashy]

fanfuckingtastic Simon

I look forward to sharing in these memories of others you've collected and I hope to learn a little more about myself in the process.

[Dusza Beben]

For fucks sake Simon!
You made me cry!

Awesome story.

DB

[gyre]

You should be a librarian or historian.
This is always their question- what to save?

I would urge you to keep the stuff and pass it on.
There is a film maker who has made films of other people's movies she has saved and quite a dramatic collection it is, even without knowing who the folks are, they tell a lot.

In my grandmother's time, it was traditional to burn the deceased possessions.
We have one thing she saved that belonged to her grandmother.

There is a docko made for POV by Kathy?? Oxenberg that is great and follows this theme of her grandmother's life and what remains.
There is a drive to leave something useful behind.
I highly recommend it.

There is a song about finding a scrapbook in a shop and wondering about the person involved.
Bon Voyage, Miss Tischnauser

I bought your scrapbook yesterday
It's a beautiful collage
Nineteen hundred twenty eight seems centuries away...

...Happiness I hope you find
Sailing away on the Panama Pacific Line...

It is by Mr. and Mrs. Garvey
I have the album somewhere.


I met the ex-wife of Gene Austin, the singer.
She has done huge collages of all her photos from the night club days and they are fantastic.
She has no artistic training and they were going to be boxed up and effectively destroyed.
I made a fuss and they have been donated to a collection now.
I hope they get seen again.
She doesn't seem the type for introspection, but they are great works.


There is a film about a huge photo library and trying to save it.
To show what they can do, they track someone's life through multiple sourced photos.
It is a tremendously moving film.
I can't remember the title.


Here is what I can find of the Garveys on the netweb.

Fugacity

To grow old is to change, and to change is to be new.
To be new is to be young again...I barely remember, when
My memory is stolen by the morning,
Blotted out by the sun's hypnotic eye,
Out by the sun's hypnotic eye.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.
I awake as a child to see the world begin
On monarch wings and birthday wanderings.
I want to put on faces, walk in the wet and the cold
And look forward to my growing old.


Ghost Towns

Now they're only ghost towns
Swaying in the wind
Memories of a bright and better day
When a tar and paper shack
Built beside the railroad track
Just a temporary mode
Till he hit the mother lode
________________________

Sit soft white flesh in backbone corsets
Rifles red from firing over
Riding herd again through hollow canyon walls
____________________________

In the summer of a dormouse
Nothing deeper please and nothing's new
The game's the same and easy always
Kiss the drifter with a flicker smile

There's a steel blue candy wrapper
Left behind the popcorn eater
As the hero smiles and nature beckons
He steers his palomino up the aisle


A source for a copy converted to cd.
Fantastic songwriting.
http://www.discogs.com/release/1129905

Tuneforums- Rare Records
http://onehitwonders.tuneforums.com/thr ... eadID=1538

[Simon of the Playa]

yes, i have been wrestling with that problem. To burn, or not to burn, that is the question.


in the end we and everything ends up as dust and ash....(hmmmm)

so to save these photos and writings is fruitless....

however, i think i've found a solution....a friend works at a place where he can do multiple hi-res scans of the boxes of images i have...

if he can do this before i head out west, i can with good conscience, burn them.

however, if not, i hesitate to do so, i've carried them around now for a while, it's like they are a part of me now, i've made up stories about them in my own mind, from the young marine who actually HAD a girl in every port, and the love letters to prove it....he looked like a young billy dee williams, and had a great smile.

and of course, virginia, "Ginny" as she was called....

i feel guilty now, i didnt give sharon all of the photos back, i kept a few...

i just couldnt give up that image, that "Memorabilia", that trigger that sets off the non-linear time bomb in my mind and throws me back to whenever it was i wrote her name and address down on a matchbook from some cafe after a beautiful, and exsquisite one night stand.

only i know what the trigger is....only to me does that matchbook mean anything.

it is a piece of me, and i save it so that i might remember, and be transported almost magically to the time and place and even feeling of that event that has long since passed.


so yes.....what to do, what to do...

i hope i can get this stuff scanned in a month...

[gyre]

Why not burn photocopies and give the rest to someone like that documentarian?


That which remains is always an interesting question.

[Simon of the Playa]

for some reason, and i think it's part of my long held belief that items carry with them some of the previous owners energy.

if you have ever watched the movie "the red violin", you know what i speak of...
the importance of the scalloped edges around the black and white photographs,

the actual poloroids, bent and misfigured.

the handwritten notes, with spills and all...the essence, the smell

all of it lends to the memory of what it is and was to somebody...

i dont think a photocopy will do. And it comes to mind, why save all of this ephemera? To make a grand collection of the mundane?

does anyone really want to hear the 40 or so hours of taped accidental and otherwise messages to "dotty" a long time smoker who eventually succumbed to lung disease (she had some BEAUTIFUL, GARGANTUAN ashtrays.) or her slightly demented nephew leonard ranting about jesus and how he could save her and her lungs.


should i just pick and choose that which strikes my fancy? all of it? none of it?

i think i need to decide at the burn....maybe an informal poll, or possibly, if someone finds something that they find touching, or meaningful to them, then they can take it, and save it, and pass it along to the next keeper of that particular memory, or destroy it if thats what they think is right.

to release or to hold.....each is symbiotic to the other.

*note to self* stop guinea-pigging the tabs before you get all esalan institute / stanislas graf on me....

[gyre]

You may want to check out the film from the girl collecting this stuff before you decide it won't be useful.


That is the whole thing about archiving, that no one knows what will be useful.
At least, few do.

Will the temple at burning man be a holy icon in a hundred years or just something that no one remembers?

I think she might find a story in your experience tracking down that girl.
I sure do.

The photo museum story makes the point that the ephemera in photos may be of incredible significance for the background or cultural details.
Collections like that are another possible home for them.
Or just posting them on the interweb.


The Archimedes palimpsest was written over because it was considered useless and now the original is being restored because it is considered to be beyond value, to us.

[Dusza Beben]

As a 3D inclined artist with an unhealthy love of containers
I would build a reliquary to house them in. Though sometimes a simple
paperboard or wooden box can be a truely powerfull reliquary in and of itself due to it's unassuming simplicity. Everything happens for a reason.
Your saving of this collection of ephemera serves a purpose. Even if that
purpose is only to fuel your imagination, that in itself is a lofty one.

DB

[Simon of the Playa]

i had a dream once where i was watching the images of people i knew in the past float by, and just as i almost remembered them, just as their name was on the tip of my tongue, another would appeaar and the other would vanish, leaving me in the same state of guessing.


they were all people who at some time or other meant something to me, but had somehow fallen away, thru distance and time to be almost forgotten.

my friend when i was 5 yrs old.

my teachers

my camp-mates

my travelling friends, my friends overseas...


all next to forgotten, so much so i couldnt grasp their names as they floated by, but they knew mine...

people whom i never mailed that letter to, people who moved away and i never saw again, yet they were special enough to be stuck in my mind.


it was terrifying, actually....i wanted to know them again, but i couldnt.



maybe this is what gyre is talking about....maybe i do need to save the actual articles....


dammit, this is supposed to be about letting things go, and now my pack-rat spider sense is going nuts.


it's not exactly the library of alexander, but now i'm afraid to burn it.


ok, i'm going to compromise....i will offer it up to my fellow citizens of BRC to take and hold and cherish and pass on, the rest i shall take back with me to rochester, and store it away with the 3000 78 rpms, and the various collections of ephemera i own.

it is interesting to see what people think is valuable to them...


makes paper money seem kinda silly.

[Simon of the Playa]

oops....doubled up.

[gyre]

Thank You and Goodnight
by Jan Oxenberg

As I suspected when I first saw them in Cold Case, the flashes of the victims at the end is Oxenberg's creation.
I caught the style immediately.
Apparently it was American Playhouse rather than POV.
I recommend this to anyone that has had a grandmother or appreciates documentaries.
It is very clear that the grandmother is willing to undergo a lot to tell her story and share with her granddaughter and us.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103070/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103070/
A deceptively simple film, I find I like it more every time I see it.

[Timezone LaFontaine]

Even if someone's life is completely forgotten or unknown to those who live on, that forgotten person's life still has profound meaning. The ol' tree falling in the forest question... I think, yeah, even if no one was there to hear it, it still makes a hell of a sound, an astonishing f***ing symphony that has no less meaning without an audience than it would with an audience. Because whether or not anyone else knows about it, it happened and it changed things.

When my girlfriend died a couple years ago, as you might expect I went through varying times of being accepting of it to being really blown away, confused, heartbroken... I had to keep all of her possessions while her family worked through various squabbles and estrangement issues. At one point I kind of freaked out and went and got most of her books, thinking I could somehow absorb everything that she had learned and preserve that. After sorting through several boxes I realized it was impossible, and that the books weren't her. I knew I had to let them go... which only took about 15 months to summon up the strength to do.

I do still have some of her things... certain things that I can just use as part of my every day life, for example things to make good food with, strike me as something that is about life and health and not just morbidly clinging to objects.

All of this has made me contemplate the notions surrounding losing someone you love -- are the things they possessed, somehow them or still a part of them? I'm not really to the point of being particularly articulate about it. But that's one of the things that I've really appreciated about Burning Man, is that there is a lot of thought and consideration put towards acknowledging loss, grieving, honoring peoples' memories -- all things that are really strangely, conspicuously absent or painfully hidden and isolated in day-to-day life for so many people.

[AntiM]

When Mom died, I inherited her jewelry. For the most part, I cannot bear to wear it.

I have old family photos ... and I do have some of the stories; Mom did geneology, so I have some of the hand-written biographies. I wish Mom had done one; she used to work in her father's fruit stand at the farmer's market in Los Angeles. She has tales of Boris Karloff scaring her, and of Gene Kelly's wife buying kumquats to make marmalade for him. Tales of escapades at the Saltaire when they lived in Utah, her handmade Halloween costume of Snow White. Her mother was a dress maker. sewing is a legacy. I have old bolts of fabric and half-finished projects and that makes me crazy; Mom, why didn't you finish the dresses for the grand-daughters? What happened?

The pastor across the street died, his family threw out thousands of slides; travels to Greece, the Holy Land, on and on, they kept nothing. I didn't save them, I know I will have all my father's slides some day; no room for memory in my full house. I managed to get a quilt made by "Aunt Rose" when they had the yard sale. I know nothing of her except she was Lutheran, lived with her brother and sister on my street, made beautiful quilts, and kept her money at First Security, because she had a lot of troll doll banks from there.

In Japan, they throw things out and save only ancient items, and I was always sad about the family photos. I found a treasure trove of WWII pictures, of a hospital ward, families, propaganda photos, a Kamikaze crew on their farewell party ... I lent them to a history professor and never got them back. I hope those ghosts have moved on to better days.

[gyre]

There is a film of a soldier who found a photo on someone he had killed in vietnam, I think.
For some reason he saved it, a photo of father and daughter, though they found things like this all the time.
Many years later he went back and found the daughter, with some trepidation.

[pinemom]

Simon...this is wonderful....So wonderful its scary.

Because from your first post, you knew what you were chosen to do with these belongings.

I think the idea is fantastic! I do think maybe one small shoe box, with one photo or letter, you should keep. But One shoe Box!
Because, you ARE the messenger!

None of us really know whats NEXT....But as I was raised a christian, but am now simply spiritual...I have a tangle of idea's of whats NEXT...

The human part of me knows that you cant take shit with you to the NEXT...Material type, molecules and atoms....blah blah blah

But I could lean on the idea that if I was out THERE in NEXT....I could visualize all those photo's and letters Ive kept being sent to me via the wind....
Not to be held, not to be touched, because I have no hands anymore,I have no eyes anymore, I only AM.
Like sending soundwaves to a dog, only they can hear.

I do think that maybe a piece of paper or even a envelope of whatever item you chose from each box with that persons sir name written on the outside, to go in the shoe box.
Then if ever the event came up that you would meet or run across the family member ...you could gift them that piece. With no explaination of where you got it nor if you had more...just a simple "no,this is what I have, this was meant for you."

This is deeper and better then anything I've heard of.
You are a VERY interesting person, Simon.

[Simon of the Playa]

like i said, that movie, "the red violin" sort of justified my seemingly OCD collection of crap.

call it fucking crazy, but you are right pinemom, just like a dog, i KNOW when i'm getting a cell phone call....it's been beaten into me by my over 15 years of the same signal over and over....that click click click that you can hear on a nearby speaker right before your phone rings.

and i also hear junk.

i'll pass by a pile, and for some ungodly reason....i am FORCED to go back and dig thru and find whatever it is that demands my attention...

y'all probably think i'm a mental case now....but i cant decide whether its OCD or the ghost that clings to that object...calling me...

and almost 100% of the time, it's true...there is something special in that pile.

case in point, and by far and away the MOST fucked up and freaky i dont even want to tell it, because it just sounds like some cheap "Medium" script or some lame "passing over" bullshit...

i found a 45 rpm pressed in rochester by Johnny and the silvertones.

it was a vanity pressing by Love Records (the name is just now hitting home.....duh...) and it was a group of teenage boys who cut this record and probably gave it to their friends, etc etc.

flash forward 50 years....

i find it inside of another album in a bunch i got at the salvation army (fuck, now that name makes more sense too...), 4 for a dollar...you cant beat it.

this little 45 was signed, so i investigated further.

it was from a collection of a woman who had moved to toronto, then came back, then died in rochester. Her name was Kathy.

i recognized one of the names, it was a local musician, an icon actually, he's called the accordian man, and his name is phil.

i looked up his phone number, and called him up....his son, phil Jr. answered and i told him this crazy story and how i wanted to get this item back to where it belongs...


there was dead silence on the other end....i had read him all the names, and as it turned out, they were all together again for the funeral of the drummer, who had just died.

The Father thought it was some kind of awful practical joke, and then after pleading with him, he sent his son over to pick it up...

they played it at the actual funeral, and i still talk to the son every now and then, as i see him around my haunts.

that shit is what i live for....that moment of impossible serendipity that bitch slaps you to your knees and makes you admit that there is a "god".

its only happened a few times, or maybe i only noticed it a few times, as the small miracles often do go undetected.

i guess i'm a 'junkie' in more ways than one.

[Simon of the Playa]

and then this comes to mind.....

"nice nice very nice, all little parts from the same device"


thanks, kurt.

[pinemom]

Now can I say .....BOO!

look at times of posts and pm...


BOO!

[Simon of the Playa]

ok...it's more than a little fucked up...but weird shit happens at burning man.


all day every day.



i wouldnt have it any other way, n'est-ce pas?

[twinwitin]

Simon-I just just read this entire thread, and had to go and get a towel, no kleenex for me! Too small! I read alot of your posts and have been surprised, entertained, informed and once in a while alittle shocked, hee hee, just when i wish for a bar of ivory soap for your latest "snarky"? comment I read this and I want to kiss your mouth until our lips bleed.
As I was reading, I did start thinking about physical memories that I have collected.
A very old tuperware bowl that G-ma made her
sugar cookies in, and I still use today.
A rinlet of my aunt darlene's beautiful auburn hair, I never met her, she died at age 6 of an infected chicken pock(in her underarm)
A purple silk shirt that daddy wore in his first grade play when he played pinnochio.
These are just memories of people I know, I guess I must have a little memory-related ocd also, I love to collect things from garage sales.
I have a cane that has a compass under the handle, which also comes out to reveal a flask!!! I often wonder where the cane has been, who walked with it etc...
I also have an old Native American blanket and all of the threads were dyed with plants. I stroke it sometimes and wonder what was the woman thinking about when she wove it? Who was she and how long did she live?
Thank you Simon, one thing you won't find in your "piles" is the mold that was used to make you!
mmmmh cheesy!

[gyre]

It is now said that the genetic drive to teach and to pass on things is what separates us from other animals.
No distinction can be made in tool using, only the ability to build on the past.
I think this is part of that.

[Simon of the Playa]

ok....just today, my girlfriends sister picked up a scrapbook from the side of the road...

there was one picture she didnt want, she couldnt bear to look at it.

she gave it to us.

it is from the 1930's is my guess, and it is a young man with cerebal palsy in a chair, his eyes semi closed, and his head in movement, sideways...

his Parents (?) are looking at him with such love, and kindness, you can feel it.

his expression is pained, almost tortured.

the juxtaposition is jarring, and yet so beautiful...


it is coming with....i will try to digiphoto upload to flikr tonight because it's just so haunting, i want you to see it now.

[Dusza Beben]

ok....just today, my girlfriends sister picked up a scrapbook from the side of the road...

there was one picture she didnt want, she couldnt bear to look at it.

she gave it to us.

it is from the 1930's is my guess, and it is a young man with cerebal palsy in a chair, his eyes semi closed, and his head in movement, sideways...

his Parents (?) are looking at him with such love, and kindness, you can feel it.

his expression is pained, almost tortured.

the juxtaposition is jarring, and yet so beautiful...


it is coming with....i will try to digiphoto upload to flikr tonight because it's just so haunting, i want you to see it now.

Yes, please share.

DB

[willyloafofphora]

[quote="gyre"]It is now said that the genetic drive to teach and to pass on things is what separates us from other animals.
No distinction can be made in tool using, only the ability to build on the past.
I think this is part of that.[/quote]

Lots of different animals teach and pass information on to their young. Some even do it through language. Whales, dolphins, and elephants are prime examples. The only thing that really separates people from animals is the amount and complexity of their tools. HUMANS ARE NOT SPECIAL. Animals are people too. Go vegetarian.

[gyre]

Elephants may be an exception.
I don't think anyone can say at this point.
They do pass on extensive survival knowledge.
They don't appear to have any physical restriction to using tools and more.
For whatever reasons, they don't go past simple ones.
Whales are possibly smart enough for this.
I don't think we're smart enough to figure it out yet.
But apes are documented as making large leaps in technology and then rapidly losing it by not passing it on.
It is those innovations that may be picked up but are not actively added to the knowledge.

some monkeys and other animals do make tool using breakthroughs once thought impossible.
Yet man added to this for some reason and other species do not.

[Simon of the Playa]

wow, dont get me going on the work of Dr. John Lilly and his cetacean (sp?) translation work....thats a whole other post...


but here is picture i rec'd yesterday from GF's sister...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53496940@N00/2671661436/


sorry about quality, was just a digi cam hovering above....will do hi-res scan soon.

[gyre]

There was an amazing photo in the paper that I remembered and I managed to track down the photographer, who sent me a copy.
I also found out the story.
It is of a reunion of a brother and sister who had been lost to each other for twenty or more years.
Remarkable smiles.

There was something puzzling about it.
I finally figured out that she was hugging her brother the way a little girl would, arms around his waist, even though she is now as tall as him.